In 2010, a group of researchers from Belgium, Germany and DRC came together and carried out a comprehensive study into weapons and violence in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The researchers from Groupe de recherche et d’information sur la paix et la sécurité (GRIP, Brussels), the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) at the request of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP-DRC) and the Congolese Commission nationale de Contrôle des Armes (CNC), l’Etude sur la prolifération des armes légères en RDC, estimated that at least 300,000 firearms were in the hands of civilians in Kivu, Ituri, Maniema and Tanganyika.
Thirteen years later, the situation has grown even more catastrophic after a deliberate and systematic distribution of arms to civilians by Tshisekedi’s belligerent establishment under the ‘Wazalendo’ banner.
If another study was undertaken today, the findings would be appalling.
Tshisekedi’s ominous ‘Wazalendo project’ portends a calamitous legacy that will sink the Kivu and outlying provinces into uncontrollable conflicts and deaths of civilians for another century.
Tshisekedi’s desperate efforts to mask his failures has made him completely insensitive to the suffering of the Congolese people. To him, the end justifies the means, except that there seems to be no end in the conflict and deaths resulting from his heedless decisions.
It is pertinent to point out that Tshisekedi is deliberately militarizing the Congolese population with deliberate intentions to ignite inter-ethnic conflict that he knows will culminate into a genocide.
Tshisekedi must be held accountable for using civilians as human shields in a conflict that he single-handedly ignited and perpetuated.